A roadmap for international financial institutions

International financial institutions too need a clear climate change roadmap. While the Bali negotiations continue into the night, it is not too early to think about what the G8 when it meets in Japan in seven months should ask these institutions:

Leverage commitments from donors with private financial flows to a leverage number of their choice.

Come up with tools for developing countries and the firms that drive their economies to understand their adaptation risk and engineer financial products with the private sector to insure against and offset those risks.

Never use public aid funds to undermine the development of a market where a market may flourish and never act to become the market, but rather facilitate their creation.

Target subsidy to speed up the adoption of new clean technologies based on a carbon price.

Ask each institution to report its baseline for GHG emissions from its portfolio in FY09 with a goal to reduce over that baseline over time with criteria for exceptions based on meeting the energy access needs of the poorest countries.

Climate proof long range development programs.

Work with developing countries to create the investment climate necessary to support clean technology adoption, promote distributed, local renewable energy solutions, and water pricing policies.

Campaign against trade barriers that act against the interests of the climate change agenda.

I would add that these institutions must also:
Avoid being used by the peddlers of the many green magical potions that are being offered.
Be as objective as possible about the cost efficiency of all adaptation and mitigation solutions considered. If we believe the problem is serious then we have to act serious.
Speak their mind out loudly when any country is not cooperating as they should in this our mutual problem. Examples of this is the per capita gasoline consumption in the USA and many distorted policies, like Venezuela selling gasoline at a price of only 8 cents of a dollar.
Forget about the discourse that some countries can be released from their responsibilities because they lack resources, since at the end of the day we either all ourselves as indigenous to this planet and do our best, or we will all sink with it.
Fuzzy baselines won’t work. Each institution should rank from a GHG perspective each individual program publicly, so as to introduce more effective accountability.